Anno 117's Pax Romana's Top Secret Reveals Itself as a Stunning First-Person Perspective.

Surprisingly — did you realize gamers have the option to enjoy Anno 117 Pax Romana using a first-person camera? If you're thinking that, you feel equally astonished compared to my initial response when I discovered this concealed mode. I must step away from my empire’s management, entrust it to a capable deputy, borrow a cart, and go for a joyride through Ancient Rome.

Activating the First-Person Feature

Being a city-building title, the game Anno 117 usually operates using a top-down camera. Yet, when you input a hidden code — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” with a gamepad — it becomes possible to roam the empire as an ordinary Roman. Given a comparable hidden feature appeared in the previous Anno title, I felt excited to test it in the new release, yet I had doubts it would work prior to being chin-deep in a Celtic floorboard (likely not meant to happen — this mode can be prone to glitches now and then).

Exploring the Ancient Streets

After extracting myself, I walked the busy roads across my settlement and explored markets, breweries, blossom gardens, and shellfish gatherers — it felt magnificent to observe all my hard work from a brand-new perspective. I observed all kinds of details I might have missed from the top-down view: Front door decorations, a beast of burden holding a blossom container, fowl roaming freely, citizens lounging on their terraces… Even just observing the form of a ledge and the coating on a pillar is quite interesting to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.

More Than Just Walking

Yet, the experience extends to Anno 117’s first-person mode than strolling along the road. I felt particularly pleased the moment I learned that I could not just view farming fields, but also access them. And although I’d assumed the building models would be off-limits, I could walk onto earthen quarries, tour an esteemed educational structure while lessons were in session, and invade personal courtyards. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the studio allocated resources for that), yet it's completely feasible stroll around a barley farm, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and glance into any tiny hut as long as the door is absent.

Visual Quality and Atmosphere

While I was completely ready to see my metropolis represented using primitive rendering, excluding a few unpolished motions and sometimes citizens positioned within a bench instead of on a bench, the immersive perspective seems much better than expected. The intricately designed surfaces (notably masonry elements) really have no business being this good within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You may not see any individual strands of hair, however, you can observe writings on surfaces, flames emitting from lights, brick decoloration, eye details, and evergreen foliage. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and stars shining in the distance, is especially atmospheric, and also a lot less scary versus the earlier title, now that the citizens don’t look like terrifying apparitions anymore.

Experimentation and Customization

Given the covert first-person feature lacks official documentation, I decided to experiment a bit, and immediately located the abilities to leap, run, and adjusting the view — with the latter allowing me to switch between first and third-person views and return. I then decided to hit some number buttons and found I could alter my character’s appearance. Yellow toga? Red toga? Azure and violet outfit? Or — maybe superior — complete battle gear? You may carry a sword and shield, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; if you activate the engage command, you launch incendiary bolts heavenward. In case you’re wondering, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I attempted, naturally).

Amusement and Inhabitant Dialogues

Yet, I didn't want to damage my population, as they're remarkably entertaining. Moments after I entered first-person mode, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and should you provide another poultry, your grandmother will be furious.” Understandable stance, father character. One lovely local Celt then began complimenting my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” whereas an irritable elderly woman opted to menace me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”

The Fun of Vehicle Use

Just when I thought I uncovered all possible content within the game's immersive perspective, I experienced the pleasure of driving in Ancient Rome. Entirely by accident, I selected a carriage and was promptly seated on the box. Bovines, equines, even human-pulled carts; you can control each one as desired. The ass-drawn vehicle, specifically, moves quite quickly, though you shouldn’t imagine Grand Theft Auto-style mischief — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (again, not saying I’ve tried).

Combat Limitations

The sole aspect that let me down regarding the first-person view was discovering my inability to participate in combat situations. Sporting my soldier fit, I charged toward adversaries during active combat and attempted to attack them, yet was completely overlooked. The front-row seat remained quite impressive, and seeing opponents retreat, their arms flailing about, felt highly gratifying, yet it would have been exciting to effectively strike targets with my burning arrows.

{Conclusion: More to Discover|Final Thoughts: Additional Exploration